Stealing the Rider's Fury
by Anaxamander
Summary: Cami knew the rumors - there was a mysterious dragon rider who rode a Night Fury. Who the rider was didn't matter. She was going to steal his dragon in the greatest feat of Bog Burglary in all of history. Cover image by Rachel Heller on Wikimedia Commons
1. Chapter 1

**AN:** I have not read the How to Train you Dragon Book Series. Therefore, all of my knowledge of Cami is from fanfictions that I've read. While I don't remember any specific ones that she is in, I want to express gratitude towards the people who put her in their stories. It is worth noting that this story is already completely written, and will be regularly updated. Disclaimers: This story is rated T for an extremely mild reference to an "adult topic". Obligatory "I do not own HTTYD." all credit to the creators.

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Of course she knew the rumors of the mysterious rider of a Night Fury, sighted from boats passing through waters near Helheim's Gate. He never engaged anyone for more than a quick flyby. No one seemed to know who the rider was, or what wanted. Not that it mattered to Cami anyway.

She was going to steal the night fury then become the rider herself. It would go down as the most daring theft in all of Bog Burglar history, and with a night fury, she would be the most powerful and respected future chief.

Stealing the dragon was going to be dangerous. Her mother, Chief Bertha would never let her attempt something so crazy, which is why Bertha wouldn't find out until Cami came back on the back of a night fury. Planning would be key; everything had to be perfect for this to work. A great plan needs a great planner, and while Cami was great at improvising, she would readily admit that planning was something she could use help with. Luckily, her friend Cedar happened to be great at planning if not over the top at times. The appeal of stealing a night fury would be too much for Cedar to resist, so Cami was confident that Cedar would want to help. That is why Cami currently found herself Cedar's house. Instead of barging in, she knocked on their door, and a thin old Viking woman answered the door.

"Hello. Can you tell Cedar that I need her help with knives practice," Cami requested politely.[AS1]

"I will let her know as soon as she has finished her chores for today," the Cedar's mother responded

Cami smiled. "Please ask her to meet me behind the old quarry. "

"Sure thing, dear"

"Thank you!"

Cami left immediately after their short exchange. Patience was critical for this to ever have a chance to get off the ground. If Cedar snuck out, her mother might search for her and discover what they were up to. That was not a risk worth taking, so Cami would wait.

When Cami got to the spot behind the quarry- relatively isolated but with good targets for practicing throwing knives – Cami pulled out her knives and began practicing throwing. She had not been lying when she said she needed Cedar's help with knives. Cami was by no means bad, but Cedar, despite being a year younger than Cami, was far better. Cami would get Cedar's help with knives, but not today. Nearly an hour passed with Cami throwing knives into the target to kill the time. By the end, she was getting bullseyes almost every time.

"Come on Cedar,"

_Chink._

"where"

_Chink._

_ "_are_" _

_Chink._

"you!"

_Chink._

Four knives, practically on top of each other, lodged dead center in the target.

"That's pretty good. But we both know that you are perfectly capable of hitting targets at standstill. You should have been –"

"Cedar!" Cami interrupted her friend, "You finally made it!"

"Sorry I took so long. Mom had me gutting the sharks from the weekend haul."

"Again? That's the third day this week!"

"Yeah, well its not for us." People in the South would buy it as a luxury item, and Cedar's mother had been selling it at inflated prices for decades. Ripping off rich southerners still counted as burglary, Cami supposed. "So when you throw your knives, you should try to hold your thumb a little firmer."

Cami laughed, "Cedar, I hate to break it to you, but I didn't _really _want to practice knives today." Cedar looked disappointed. Probably because she wouldn't be showing off her amazing knife throwing skills. "It's something better. We are going to steal a night fury!"

Cedar looked at her friend, dumfounded. Of all the things she expected Cami to say, that was certainly not one of them.

"Let me explain. As you know, there have been rumors of a dragon rider riding a night fury. If we can manage to steal it, we will go down as the greatest Bog Burglars in history."

Cedar did not look convinced, "So you want us to somehow track down a potentially dangerous dragon rider who may not even exist, kill a night fury, which no one knows how to kill, return home and praised as the best Boggies ever."

"Almost. We won't be killing the dragon. Think about it, instead of becoming night fury killers, we could become the riders of the night fury. That's a whole new level above being Vikings. And, stealing the night fury will be like the time we stole that horse from the rich southerner, but better. Once we steal it, we can use it as our getaway. As for the rider even existing – where there's smoke, there's fire."

"Hmm," Cedar looked thoughtful "So you have a plan?"

Cami smiled, "Why do you think you're here?"

Cedar deliberated for only a moment. Cami could tell the proposal was enticing. "Ok, I'm in. But we can't plan here; we'll need maps and paper and pencils and all the other planning supplies."

"Way ahead of you," Cami walked over to target, removed her four throwing knives, then lifted its canvas covering, revealing everything her friend could want for planning. Cedar's compulsive urge to write everything down was sometimes frustrating, but today it would help them lay the groundwork for the greatest Bog Burglar heist ever.

Cedar smiled when she saw what Cami had brought – maps, paper, a straight edge, ink, protractor, and Chief Bertha's dragonbone pen. It was everything needed to put together a comprehensive plan.

"This… this could work."

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**AN:** Leave a review and let me know what you think. I'd love to hear thoughts, criticisms, and predictions. Like I said earlier, this story is already completely written, so you can expect another update within the week.

Huge shout out to ViggoGrimborn whose advice has been helping me with writing so far and for having generally excellent stories.


	2. Chapter 2

AN: So I ran out of time to edit this chapter so its up for now but it needs some revisions. But, Like I said, the story is complete so it will be posted one way or another.

"So what do we know about the rider?"

Cami pulled out a specific map, "The rider has been seen in this area," she said, pointing at a circled area near Helheim's gate. "And I'm pretty sure the rider has been spotted around or causing trouble for Berk." Cami moved her finger to the largest island near Helheim's Gate, the map indicating that they were about a day and night of sailing apart.

"Did a Berkian tell you about the rider?" Cedar asked.

"Not exactly. You see, at the last meeting of chiefs, about a month ago, I asked the heir to Berk about the dragon rider, and he told me no, he hadn't heard anything about a rider, except he said it like this – W-what?, I uh, I I have absolutely no idea who the rider is?"

Cedar laughed at Cami's surprisingly accurate impression of Hiccup, heir to Berk. "So you think he was lying?"

"Nope," Cami declared happily, "His face turned red, and he was stammering because he was confronted by my divine beauty"

Both girls laughed, and Cami continued the story, "So after asking Hiccup, I went and asked several other people from Berk, and they all gave me the exact same answer, that one of their fisherman saw the rider in the distance. But their answers were almost word for word the same,"

"So you think they rehearsed the answer?"

"Bingo! And get this, apparently Berk defeated the dragon nest and raids stopped just before last winter."

"So do think that Berk somehow figured out how to control the dragons? Is the dragon rider one of theirs?" Cedar wondered.

"That's what I thought at first, but you have to remember, this is Berk we're talking about here. They _Hate_ dragons. Especially their chief Stoic the Vast; he lost his wife to the dragons and apparently has never been the same since. And Hiccup lost his foot when they fought at the nest."

"huh"

"So here's my theory," Cami continued, "The rider is obviously a dragon sympathizer, so he was probably pretty angry when he found out the nest had fallen. I bet the rider has been attacking Berk, but they're too proud to admit that they can't take one dragon after they took the entire nest."

Cedar looked thoughtful at this suggestion. "I guess that makes sense. But if being a dragon rider automatically makes you a dragon sympathizer, what will that make us?"

"Well, its not like we'll have trained it or anything. Riding a horse didn't make us Southerners so I don't see why this would be any different."

"I guess so, and if the dragon raids are truly over, then dragons aren't enemies. Just dangerous animals," Cedar reasoned.

"Good point"

"So if the rider is attacking Berk, he probably is hiding out on a nearby island. The only ones on your map are here," Cedar pointed to a small uninhabited island that was on the opposite side of Berk to Helheim's Gate, "or here." Cedar's finger landed on the area labeled Helheim, known to be the general location of the nest and a cluster of other tiny islands.

"No one's been to the nest before the Berkians emptied it, but the ones I talked to said it was a volcanic island," Cami offered.

"Right. So that means he has to be staying on the other island then."

"Wait. What prevents the rider from being at the old nest island?"

"Well, if they are volcanic islands, then they'll be completely barren. The dragons can survive there, but the rider is still human. He would need wood for fires and fresh water and food and everything else. You can't get those from that area if you are right about it being volcanic. "

"So we think know where the dragon rider is camping. But we could be wrong. We just don't have enough information on the rider to be sure."

Cedar thought a moment then wrote something at the top of one of her pages – 'Plan A'

"Lets pretend we are right about where the rider is camping," Cedar began, "We still need to somehow get there, steal the dragon, not get killed, and make it back."

"Well for the first part, we take the sailing skiff in the middle of the night and sail there. Its not a full sized boat so it will get is there in half the time normally sailing would."

Cedar began writing, then paused. "What if people start looking for us? Once we're caught, we'll have no chance at all."

"I've already thought of that. I will give one of the little Boggies a message for chief Bertha, but I'll tell her to only give the message if Bertha calls a search for me and you."

"Will the message actually say what we're doing?"

"Of course not!" Cami scoffed, "That would ruin the surprise of us coming back with a Night Fury!"

"And what happens when they try to 'kill on sight' when we arrive?" Cedar asked.

Cami paused, having not thought that part through. "Well, er, We'll have plenty of time on the boat to figure out that minor detail."

Cedar, of course, made a note in her plans to figure that out later. "Ok, what about the whole 'steal the night fury' part? We would probably need to find it while it the rider is sleeping, but what if its also asleep?"

"I suppose we would wake it up."

"Right. Because waking a sleeping dragon is a good idea."

"Well," Cami began, "Its an animal. As long as we have food for it, we'll be fine."

Cedar made a note, then looked up, "What type of food?"

"The dragons seem to primarily target livestock. And we sometime find half eaten deer carcasses, so I think they like those too."

"Ok then what? We just get on the dragon and ride it away?"

"Ideally, yes. Its already been trained, so it should be nothing we can't handle." Cami smiled at the thought actually stealing the dragon. "And if its too complicated, we steal the dragon on our boat and figure out how to ride it another day."

Cedar looked a little dubious of this particular detail but went with it anyway for lack of a better idea. "And if 'just riding away' works, are we leaving the skiff?"

"Yes. That way the rider can get away from the island. If he trains another dragon, we can steal it too!"

"Ok, so to recap, Plan A is: Leave note for Chief, Steal skiff, make sure to bring food, think of how to introduce our dragon, arrive at night and steal the night fury, fly back home as the new dragon rider."

"Yep. Sounds good. What do you think of leaving tonight?"

"Hold on, we don't know if plan A will work!" Cami groaned, knowing where this was going, "We need a Plan B, in case plan A doesn't work."

"Which part?"

"The biggest risk is us sailing out there and finding out that the rider isn't there, which is likely considering that all we have to go off of is guesswork"

"So If the rider isn't there, he could be anywhere," Cami said, "Which is a good thing actually."

Now it was Cedar's turn to be confused, "Why do you say that?"

"Think of how much ground the rider can cover in a day. What might be hours in a boat could be a few minutes for a dragon. That means the rider is more likely to find us than we are to find him."

"But if the dragon rider finds us, how are we going to steal the dragon?"

"Well the rider doesn't need to actually find us in particular. I was thinking maybe we could somehow lure the rider into a trap of sorts, then steal the dragon."

"It would have to be something that he could see from the air. What if we pretend to be shipwrecked and make smoke signals and stuff?" Cedar suggested.

"Well that might work," Cami paused. "But if the rider is taking out some sort of revenge, who's to say he'd even want to help?"

"Good point"

Both girls sat and thought for a moment,

"I've got it! what if we make a giant image that can only be seen from the sky? I know it sounds stupid but if you were in the air and saw a giant image on the ground, wouldn't you want to check it out?"

"Yes, but I would know it's a trap. I'd be way more careful.

"Leave that part to me. I have a trick that will definitely distract him."

"What are you gonna do? Seduce him?" Cedar laughed at the idea.

There was a decidedly devious glint in Cami's eyes, "Not exactly. Just trust me on this one. He'll be distracted."

"Ok, Fine," Cedar said in mock exasperation.

"Then once we bait the rider, everything from Plan A should be the same."

"Right, but what if we can't lure the rider at all?"

"I say we sail over to Berk, collect information on the rider, steal some stuff, then go home. We tell Bertha that we needed to visit Berk for something, then just take whatever punishment we get. Its not like this will be the first time I've run off." When it came to punish her wild daughter, Bertha had given up long ago on making Cami more obedient. It really just wasn't worth the effort.

"That works for me," Cedar said, "I say we leave tonight."

"Wait really?" Cami asked, surprised. She would have guess that Cedar would want another day to work out the details.

Cedar made a face, "Well if we leave tonight, I can avoid another day of gutting and cleaning sharks."

"Sweet, meet at the docs with everything at midnight?"

"Sounds good, but I need to get home now so I can prepare."

"Ok. Make sure you tell your mom that I did great with the throwing knives!"

Cedar laughed, "No, I don't think I will. I think I'll tell her that your aim got worse"

With that, both girls left the spot behind the quarry. Cami made sure to carefully hide all of the materials, especially the plans Cedar had written. She had a very good feeling about this trip.

AN: let me know what you think!


	3. Chapter 3

AN: so this is a short chapter with minimal proof reading because college is kicking my ass. But the story IS already completed so it will be posted one way or another.

Chapter 3: In Transit

Cami and Cedar left with relative ease the night after they made the plan. Once the girls settled down in the boat, Cami offered to sail it through the night while Cedar slept. Cedar agreed because manning a boat through the day and night with just two people was going to mean taking turns sleeping. When morning arrived, Cami woke Cedar, then promptly went to sleep herself. With the wind at their backs, they were making even better time than they expected. Cami woke up around an hour past noon, and she prepared lunches of lamb jerky for them.

"So Cami, you never did tell me what sort of distraction you had for the dragon rider." Cedar had spent the morning going over details of their plans while she kept the boat in the right direction. Despite wanting to know every little detail, she knew if Cami said she had it covered, it was covered.

Cami responded to Cedar's question by going to one of the bags she had packed and searching it. "Here!" She produced a bundle of papers wrapped in canvas and tied with leather cord, "Stole these from a snooty wine merchant on our trip to the deep south." Cami tried to suppress a grin as she handed the bundle to Cedar.

Cedar fiddled with the knot until she got it untied. "oh – Oh! Cami!" Cedar laughed, "That is evil! How come you never told me you got these?"

"Oh, I wasn't really sure what to do with them at first, but I knew they would make a great surprise." Cami was now fully grinning with as she watched Cedar flip through the pages with wide eyes.

"Ok, I have to admit, I was not expecting this."

"But it will work, don't you think?"

"Definitely"

After Cedar finished examining every single page, a full ten minutes later, she carefully wrapped up papers in their canvas covering and tied the leather cord around them. They sat in silence for several minutes until Cedar broke it, "You know what we can do to pass the time?"

"Sleep?" Cami suggested, "Eat again? Play 'I Spy'? Plan world domination? Stare blankly into the sky and wait for the gods to punish us for our hubris?"

"What? Of course not. Now is the perfect time to practice your knife throwing."

Cami scowled. Of course Cedar wouldn't want to spend a perfectly good afternoon doing nothing. "First, we are on a tiny boat. Where would even throw knives? They'd probably all end up at the bottom of the ocean. Second, I didn't even bring my knives"

It was Cedar's turn to smile evilly. "Lucky for you, I brought the towing target that me and mom use on our fishing trips as well as an extra set of practice knives. " Cami groaned as Cedar pulled out a what looked like a mini raft with a target fixed to the top. There was a long two foot wide strip of canvas that presumably doubled for towing the target and catching knives that fell short.

"Oh my gods Cedar! I cannot believe you managed to hide that from me, much less bothered to pack it! Can't you just sit back and relax for one day?"

"It's a long trip," Cedar defended, "I'll let you have this afternoon off, but don't expect my mercy in the future."

If Cedar really took that stupid floating target with her every time she and her mom went shark fishing, Cedar's impeccable knife skills were more sad than impressive. There's only so much time one could be entertained by landing knives into a piece of wood. It was maybe going to be a longer trip than Cami thought.

AN: Let me know what you think! Also, would you guys prefer that I take more time to edit or post as is on time?


	4. Chapter 4

Arrival

If Cami had to throw another knife, it was going to be at Cedar. And she wouldn't miss. Cedar had made sure of that herself. At one point, Cami purposely was missing so badly that the knives would fall into the sea and they would run out, but Cedar was unfazed. She just kept pulling out more and more practice knives from her pack.

After six consecutive days and nights of sailing, knife throwing, and complaining, they made it to the island. Considering that it would normally take nearly two weeks in a full-sized boat, Cami was pretty happy with the time that they made. When they made it to the island's vicinity, they hid their boat in one of those shallow ocean caves and waited for nightfall. Come nightfall, they snuck onto the island and scoured it for the sleeping rider. After hours of searching, the two girls found… nothing.

Despite this initial setback, between her knives training and sleeping, Cedar had obsessively reworked and optimized their plans. So instead of camping out for the night, Cedar insisted that they start on the "bait" for the rider. The giant image they were going to be creating on the ground was of a monstrous nightmare because clearly the rider had an active interest in dragons. On the boat in her free time, she had drawn up plans for the best way to build the picture, including measurements on relative sizes and estimates of how large it needed to be to be seen from the air. After making the detailed construction plans, she made an exact copy so both her and Cami could have one. Cedar figured that one of the hillside meadows facing Berk would work best for their image, and that it was going to be 60 feet long from jaws to tail. She had designed it in a way that it would take as few lines and as little work possible to create the image.

They began their work using what was available to them. Instead of forming large lines of rocks, they found it was much quicker to remove tall grasses in lines, leaving the red brown earth exposed. The sun began to rise when they were about two thirds done. Since both girls were too tired to continue, they decided to rest for a few hours and hope that the rider didn't show up while they were asleep. Just to be sure that they would be there if he did come by, they slept underneath a pile of tall grasses in the center of their image. It was uncomfortably itchy but they were too tired to care at that point.

Cedar woke first, a little before noon. If the grass hadn't bothered her that morning, it was bothering her now. She got up to escape the itchy feeling of bugs crawling on her skin and left for the boat to grab some food. When she got to the sea cave they had anchored in, a surge of panic overcame her. This was bad. She and Cami made a major miscalculation last night. Cedar wanted to panic. The situation that she discovered was enough to make her sick, but the rational part of her brain made her stay calm. She got the food for her and Cami from their boat and returned to where Cami was asleep, doing her best not to think about the problem she just discovered.

When Cedar got back to camp, Cami was still fast asleep. Instead of violently waking her friend and asking for answers like she wanted to, she let Cami sleep. There was work to do. As she started clearing the tall grass in the long lines that would form an image of a monstrous nightmare, she became more and more agitated. _Was this grass really so scratchy last night?_ Cedar pulled a burr off her long skirt. _What if this doesn't work? Plan C just went out the window. _Cedar stubbed her toe on a dead tree branch. She needed to talk to Cami. Cami would surely be able to hatch some crazy plan to solve the problem. Cedar went over to her sleeping friend and moved all of the long dry grasses hiding her. She gently shook Cami.

"Not now mom," Cami mumbled and rolled over.

"Cami. Wake up." Cedar told her friend firmly. A few seconds passed before Cami shot up, a knife appearing in her hand from seemingly nowhere.

"Is the rider here?" Cami whispered, looking around franticly.

"No, but we have another problem."

"What is it?" Cami asked, somehow looking less awake with the knowledge that the rider wasn't there.

"When we anchored the boat in the sea cave, it wasn't high tide."

"So?"

"So the cave wasn't tall enough. Our mast is snapped."

"Oh."

"What are we going to do?" Cedar asked worriedly.

"Well, technically, our plan doesn't need the boat now that we're here."

"So what? We just hope the current plan succeeds, and if it doesn't we die here?" Cedar asked angrily. She knew she was overreacting, but after six days in a boat and very little sleep the previous night, her self-control was a worn a little thin.

"Cedar, it'll work. Trust me. I have a really good feeling about all of this. And if it doesn't work, we repair the mast as best as we can and float to Berk. They'll have the proper supplies to help us anyway."

Cedar deflated a little but still didn't look feel particularly satisfied with that plan. "Lets just finish this."

Without another word, the two girls set off to work, finishing the design and making the lines wider. After two hours of hard work, Cedar decided that it was good enough. "Hey Cami, I think we're done here."

"Not quite," Cami replied, engrossed in stacking stones around the area of the eye.

"Why are you doing that? It's way easier to just clear the grass."

"Right, but the picture needs an obvious focal point, so that when the rider lands, he'll be drawn to the 'distraction'"

Cedar, satisfied with the answer began helping Cami with this final touch. When they finished the eye, they had a large, circular, alter-like structure. To really draw in focus, Cami put an extra piece of canvas over the stone circle. It definitely looked like some sort of alter now. Cami placed the parcel of papers on top of the eye.

"All done. Lets catch us a Fury!"

Cedar couldn't share in Cami's enthusiasm because of fatigue and worry about their boat situation. "Hey Cami, do you mind if I take a short nap? You can watch and wake me up if anything happens."

"Sure thing," Cami replied, "I've got another idea that I can work on while we wait."

Cedar practically didn't hear what Cami said as she meandered over to the edge of the meadow and collapsed into sleep on a pile of pine straw.

Consciousness came back slowly for Cedar. The first thing she noticed was the pricking of pine needles against her arms. Then she noticed the moon shining directly into her eyes. Cami apparently let her sleep away the rest of the afternoon and into the night. Cedar huffed in frustration. Cami should have woken her up earlier; she needed sleep too. Cedar got up to search for her friend.

Cedar was surprised to find her friend hauling a small aspen trunk up a nearby hill. "Hey!" Cedar called out.

Cami looked up, "You're finally awake," she said happily, "Come look at this." Cedar followed her friend's pointing, up to the top of the hill. It was hard to tell in the dark, but she didn't see too much.

"What exactly am I looking at?"

Cami smilled. "This is the product of lots and lots of work."

Cedar was still confused so she decided to just climb to the top of the hill to get a closer look. When she got near the top, the smell of grass and pine sap became almost overwhelming. Cedar looked for the source, and realized what Cami had done. She had taken all of the grass they cut earlier and piled it up, then stacked an impressive amount of wood on top of that. The entire top of the hill was being built up for a massive fire. "It's impressive, I'll give you that."

"I figure we can light it at dawn"

"Sure, but only if you take a shift sleeping now. You can't afford to be exhausted when the rider comes. I'll keep building up the pile until then."

Cami agreed and promptly found a spot to sleep away the last hours of the night. Cedar immediately began continuing Cami's work. It wasn't a bad idea so long as they could avoid burning down the entire island.

By the time the sun began to rise, Cedar's hands were coated in a layer of sticky pine sap and dirt. She made her way down to the beach to wash her hands off, then went to wake Cami.

Cami woke quicker than before, ready to put all of their plans into action. In no time at all, she managed to spark the dry grass by striking her knife against a piece of flint she had brought.

"It will take some time for the rider to see this and come. You should get some sleep while you can," Cami said, "I'll make sure the fire never gets near you, and I'll wake you when rider comes,"

"Sounds good to me. Thanks Cami"

Sometimes when one wakes, they are completely disoriented for a moment, unable to recall where they are. This was not the case for Cedar, who was jarred awake by her friends shaking. Before she even opened her eyes, she knew the fire had created more than enough smoke from its bitter taste lingering in the back of her throat.

"Cedar wake up!" Cami whispered as she shook her friend again. "The rider is coming!"

"What? From where?"

Cami pointed at the sky and Cedar followed her finger to a solid black mass in the sky. Her stomach twisted in excitement and apprehension. This was it.

* * *

AN: Sorry for the long wait for a chapter of a story that is already done. I know you guys probably don't care but this chapter is very rough. Before I proofread it, it was much worse. Sorry for inconsistancies in style, quality, and grammar. I want to do my best to become a better writer, but I also want to balance that with being able to post these chapters.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Please leave a reveiw to let me know what you think, or if you really feel strongly, you can leave two reveiws or something. Cheers.


	5. Chapter 5

ACT III

In the moment, Cami was loosely aware that she was probably one of the only Vikings to ever have seen a Fury up close and live to tell the tale. This one seemed pretty tame, which was good for the plan, but the rider had not dismounted. Everything at this point hinged at the rider getting off his dragon. All Cami needed was a moment to sneak up and jump on to the dragon.

The rider was a lot smaller than she would have expected. She could probably easily take him on in combat. As long as the dragon didn't interfere. She couldn't really get a good look at him from where she was hiding, but she could see that he was drawn towards the dragon's eye. When he saw the parcel of papers on top of it, he muttered something and got off the dragon. This was her chance! Cami whispered to Cedar that she would grab the dragon, and if the rider noticed her before she was ready, Cedar should distract him. Cedar nodded and the two girls waited for the moment they both knew was coming. The rider untied the parcel, looked at the top page, then dropped the stack. A moment passed, the rider was frozen. Then he gingerly picked up the stack of papers he had dropped, carefully examining the front page. Their distraction worked.

Cami nodded at Cedar and sprung into action while the rider was distracted. She snuck up on the dragon as quietly and as quickly as she could. She was right behind it when she saw that one of the tailfins was prosthetic. She filed that away and decided that the best way to get on the dragon was slowly, so as to not startle it. She did her best to slide her foot onto the strange metal stirrup, then mounted the dragon like she would a horse. As soon as her weight fell onto the dragon, it roared and turned to try to see her. It was apparently not happy with its new rider

"Shit!" Cami began panicking. There were no reins to pull on like with a horse. She had nothing to hold on to as the dragon started try to buck her off. "Fly stupid dragon!" Cami shouted at the creature. This was not part of the plan.

To make things worse, their distraction hadn't held the rider's attention in the face of a roaring and bucking dragon. He was shouting wildly, but Cami was too busy holding on for dear life to the dragon to care what he was saying. The night fury paused its bucking to Cami's relief only for her to be knocked into the ground by its tail. Hard.

A moment passed in complete disorientation before Cedar pulled her up. The girl was talking at her, looking fearful as she spoke. None of Cedar's words even registered. All Cami saw was the rider get on the fury and begin to fly away. She was not letting them get away after all this. She pushed Cedar out of the way and grabbed one of the knives she had strapped to her belt. She hurled the knife as hard as she could at the escaping dragon's prosthetic tail. It sailed through the air and struck true. A black piece of cloth tore from the tail, and the dragon began plummeting to the ground.

The rider had apparently fallen off the dragon before it hit the ground because he landed several feet away from it. The dragon was up first, facing Cami and growling. Cami stood her ground. It was tame, she told herself. Otherwise it would have torn her to shreds already. The dragon never looked away from her as it began making its way towards the rider who was just now getting up. This was the first good look at the rider. He looked to be about her age, skinnier than most Vikings, and had a striking resemblance to…

"Hiccup?" Cami called out cautiously. It was impossible. The rider had been attacking Berk in revenge for taking out the nest…

"What… Cami?" the rider responded uncertainly, rubbing the arm that he landed on. He put his hand on the dragon's snout but it continued to snarl in her direction. Hiccup took stock of her, noting the multitude of knives still strapped to her waist. "You aren't going to try and skewer me or Toothless with another knife, are you?"

The rider was definitely Hiccup, Cami was certain now, no matter how impossible it seemed. "As long as you keep your dragon from eating Cedar or me"

"It's a deal," Hiccup called from the other side of the field and began actively trying to calm his dragon. Cami beckoned to Cedar, and they slowly began approaching Hiccup. The whole situation was so strange that Cami was struggling to process what was going on. Instead of continuing the faulty line of guesswork that had gotten Cedar and herself that far, Cami decided she needed some real answers.

"Hiccup, what in the name of Odin is going on?"

**AN:**Every time I reread my work, I don't feel so good about posting it. I guess I just need more practice with writing, which is part of the reason I wrote this in the first place. I hope you all enjoyed it anyway. As a side note, the next chapter will probably be out sooner rather than later. Out of curiosity, has anyone guess what those papers contain?


	6. Chapter 6

AN: This is essentially a rerun of last chapter from Cedar's point of view.

Everything went to Hel as soon as Cami stepped onto the night fury. It shrieked and thrashed wildly doing its best to rid itself of Cami. She managed to hold on until the dragon struck Cami with its tail. Cami flew through the air, and time slowed. Cedar's friend limply crashed into the ground and Cedar needed to get to her but she wasn't fast enough and the dragon was roaring and they were getting away and Cami was awake thank the gods and Cedar was on the ground.

How was she on the ground? Confusion and disorientation clouded Cedar's mind. Cami had been out, right? How was Cami up? Cedar pulled herself up and the night fury shrieked again. Cami and the dragon were facing each other down. Cedar knew she should do something, but she felt that any wrong move would cause the night fury to fire on them. She held her breath, waiting for something to happen. Why was the dragon still here?

Cami was apparently not as focused on the on the dragon as Cedar was. "Hiccup?" Cami said, not quite shouting. Cedar's brow scrunched in confusion, but her focus never left the dragon.

Cedar's hand found the knife on her hip when the rider responded, seeming to recognize Cami. Against her better judgement, Cedar left the knife on her belt instead of pulling it out. The rider put his hand on the dragon and spoke again, "You aren't going to try and skewer me or Toothless with another knife, are you?"

Cedar didn't want to agree to anything, but Cami spoke for them, "As long as you keep your dragon from eating Cedar or me."

The rider seemed to relax. "It's a deal." Cedar didn't trust the rider, not even under the tentative truce that Cami had formed. Not even if the rider really was Hiccup, heir to Berk. But she would not break Cami's truce right now, she pulled her hand away from her knife.

A beat passed as the two girls watched the rider try to calm his dragon. Cami took a step forward. "Hiccup? Whats going on?"

"I could ask you the same. A massive fire, then a giant picture of dragon only visible from the air? What is all this?"

"If I recall correctly, the last time we talked, you said Berk defeated the dragon nest. You never said anything about having a night fury!"

"Well excuse me for not wanting to get myself killed for treason at the meeting of chiefs. But while we're talking about it, this is Toothless." The rider gestured at the night fury, who, despite no longer snarling, still looked ready to kill.

None of this was making sense to Cedar. "Excuse me, but who are you and why should we believe anything you say? And why would you call a dragon that very clearly has teeth 'Toothless'"

Before the rider could answer, Cami did. "This is Hiccup of Berk. Remember how I told you about the weird peg leg he has? Look at it." Cedar hadn't even noticed the leg until that point, and she was surprised by Cami's quick observions. Cami turned her attention back to the rider. "Why is the dragon called Toothless? It's a good question. But you need to answer with a lot more than that."

Hiccup sighed. "I hope you're ready for a long story, because I've got a lot of explaining to do."

"Yes," Cedar punctuated her words, "You do."


	7. Chapter 7

AN: This is the last chapter. Enjoy!

Both girls sat in silence as they thought about Hiccup's story. Cami had asked a few questions throughout, but Cedar was silent the entire time. If what he said was true, they'd have to rethink everything they knew about dragons. It might not be so terrible to do that – she and Cedar had been planning on having their own night fury before they knew any of that. And what Hiccup had told them was pretty believable considering the now mostly docile night fury in front of them.

The fire that they had lit to lure Hiccup to the island was nearly out, but Cami didn't want it to burn the rest of island down. "I'm going to make sure the fire is dead." She announced.

"Ok, but you still owe me your side of the story."

Cami walked up the hill and walked about the perimeter of the large burnt patch. She could still return to Bog with a dragon… What type would she want? It would be cool if she and all the heirs rode Night Furies, but so far, Toothless was the only one.

When Cami was satisfied that the embers would not spread to the rest of the Island, she walked back down to where Hiccup and Cedar were sitting. Hiccup was scratching Toothless, and Cedar was idly spinning her knife. She sat down, deciding how much detail she wanted to tell Hiccup about the plan to steal the night fury.

"Our side of the story is much simpler than yours. We heard rumors of a dragon rider and night fury, and being Bog Burglars, we decided to steal it." Cami summarized.

Hiccup snorted. "Of course. Because why wouldn't you steal someone else's dragon. Do you realize that if I had been anyone else, you would probably be dead? And how did you even get here? I saw no boats around the island before I landed."

"First of all, we didn't die. We hardly got injured at all." Cedar coughed in not so subtle disagreement. "Second, we sailed here but hid our boat in a sea cave so as to not alert anyone that this is a trap."

"Well, I guess it worked even though I knew it was going to be a trap of some sort. And I am glad you have a boat, because Toothless is grounded and I didn't bring a spare tailfin."

Cedar huffed. "Hate to break it to you, but that won't work. Our boat's main mast snapped."

"So we're trapped? Wonderful."

Cami could practically feel the irritation rolling of Cedar in waves, and she could see it was starting to affect Hiccup. "Hold on. Between the three of us, I'm sure we can figure something out. We're two heirs and one of the most brilliant planners from Bog."

"Brilliant failed plans." She muttered.

"Cedar, the plan, which was a huge longshot to begin with, nearly worked flawlessly. There was no way we could have known dragons aren't like horses. No one else would even consider stealing a night fury. So I don't want to hear it."

"That's because the idea of stealing a night fury is insane!" Hiccup interjected.

"Maybe, but the plan nearly worked and turned out well regardless." Cami stood, "Lets go see if we can fix up the boat."

After two hours, the clever implementation of several bent metal rods, and a lot of struggling to fit three people and a dragon on a two-person boat, the three of them (maybe four of them? Cami wasn't sure if the dragon counted) set sail. All of their moods improved significantly while fixing the boat, and Cedar seemed to really connect with Hiccup while they were brainstorming repairs.

Now that they were sailing and had little to occupy the time, Cami decided to make things interesting. "So, Hiccup. There is one part of our plan that we've neglected to talk about that worked exceedingly well."

"Oh?"

Cami pulled out the bundle of papers. She had discreetly retrieved it after their scuffle and hidden it in preparation for this moment. When Hiccup realized what she was referring to, his whole face turned red.

"I – That was a low blow!" Hiccup said defensively, "Where did you even get… such crude art?"

Both girls were now grinning at Hiccup's embarrassment. "Its good, isn't it?" Cami said.

Hiccup buried his face in his palms. "I can't believe I'm about to say this," Hiccup sighed, resigned to his eternal embarrassment, "Its better than Snotlout's drawings of 'Big Boobied Bertha'"

At that, both girls burst into a fit of laughter. Even Toothless seemed to get a rise out of that admission.

"Shut up you useless reptile," Hiccup muttered, sending Cami and Cedar into another fit of laughing.

"Well, since you thought it was so great," Cami said through her giggles, "Would you like to see more? I think you only looked at the first page. There are 23 more!"

"You know what? I'm done with this conversation."

Cami began to whisper furiously to Cedar, and both girls continued to laugh as they made their way towards Berk.

AN 2: I hope everyone enjoyed this short story. There is a mini epilogue if anyone is interested. Please let me know what you think and happy 2020


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